


from your lips, a precipice

by LadyPuck



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 17:06:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyPuck/pseuds/LadyPuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Agent 007 meets his Quartermaster a bit earlier on. Some things change, others stay the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It begins on a different day, on a different month, if not quite a different year. There is a museum, a ship, a gun, and a radio. There is a “You must be joking,” but it is cockier, lighter. The agent who uttered it is relaxed in a neat sprawl, not hunched defensively, body aching, looking a little lost. The edges on the quartermaster are softer, not yet tormented by a deadly invasion that slipped by him and his people. Less defensive, his quips are backed by a largely untried confidence.  
  
“Q”  
  
“007”  
  
It doesn’t end there. In fact, with a spur of the moment question, it begins.  
  
“Have coffee with me.”  
  
It begins with an utterly un-unique question and a tripping man in a parka, his calm and collected exit ruined, squawking: “What?!”

* * *

  
Four months into a relationship that was as unexpected as a sunny London day, there is a call in the night. They haven’t quite moved in together but hipster jumpers and glasses litter a classically elegant flat more nights than not and a tiny hole of a loft finds itself home to several suits of impeccable taste and make.  
  
It’s not what Q would have expected, not the invitation for coffee and certainly not what follows. After all, the few short months he had been working for MI-6 as quartermaster before he met 007 were riddled with stories and gossip about the department’s best agent.  
  
 _Deadly. Stoic. Manwhore._  He got the job done and slept with beautiful women while still drenched in blood. 

 _Cold. Efficient. Rebellious._ He had M up in arms every other week, had killed over a hundred people in the name of Queen and country. 

 _Bastard. Exemplar. Dapper-as-fuck._ Wore a bespoke suit like he was born to, wielded a gun with the same grace.

The whispers held bits of truth and bits of lies, weaving together a picture of a man with awed, bitter, horrified, and jealous threads.  
  
Q, if he had imagined a universe where Bond was interested in him beyond exploding gadgets, (he hadn’t) might have pictured a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am assignation. Only, with well, a sir instead of a ma’am. A brief liaison, a covert dalliance, a quick canoodle. Basically, the type of short-lived affair the whispers hinted at, initiated in a broom closet or anonymous bar.  
  
What actually happened was hot drinks, an honest conversation, and a budding, serious-as-fuck, relationship.  
  
When Bond came back from his mission, they had coffee at a quiet shop near London Bridge, next to a busy market. Bond’s scarred and heavy hands delicately stirred sugar into a latte while Q sipped his Earl Grey, pretending not to notice their strength or wonder how they would feel carded through his hair.  
  
10 minutes of Q attempting idle chit-chat and Bond looking at him, a blend of amusement and something else, anticipation maybe, and Q breaks.  
  
“What is this 007?”  
  
“James. Or Bond if you’d prefer.” The man was almost smug, but it was tempered by actual happiness. Happiness over being there, with Q of all people.

It, quite frankly boggled his mind.  
  
“But, I’m a man?”  
  
“Is that a question?” came the amused reply. Before Q could work himself into a blustering blob of indignation, Bond continued.

“I bloody well know you’re a man. It’s hard to miss.” He gave Q a genuinely appreciative once over before continuing.  
  
“This,” a gesture encompassing the coffee and tea, shop, and Q, “is a date.”  
  
“You’re straight though.” “Bisexual, actually. Though one must protest at such static labels.” Eyebrows raised, Q sipped his neglected tea. That certainly hadn’t come up in the rumor mill.  
  
“But, I’m me? And no, that’s not a bloody question!” he hastened to add, ire piqued. An actual chuckle broke out from Bond.  
  
“You’re brilliant, gorgeous, and I think I’d have regretted it for a long time if I hadn’t asked you out.” There is a rough honesty in his voice and behind it, a barely scarred-over pain. Q blinked at his sudden candor and felt something spark warm inside him. He smiled tentatively, and felt it grow wider as Bond smiled back.  
  
A dinner date later, Q had mustered up his courage to place a quick, dry kiss on Bond’s lips. Five minutes after that, he had managed to pluck up his courage enough to drag the man into a cab, then his flat. It was a very good end for the night but not, as Q had still half-expected in the corner of his mind, the end of their affair.  
  
Flash forward, four months.  
  
There are chess games, evenings out to the theatre, and grocery trips. There are arguments, shouting, and apologies. There are slow, warm kisses and nights to be remembered for their blazing heat.  
  
Sometimes, Bond threads his hands through Q’s thick hair in long strokes as he reads. Sometimes Q gives in to the urge to squish Bond’s face between his hands, long spindly fingers pressing on his agent’s funny ears. Other times, Bond sits near him as he breaks an encryption or creates one, and there is an appreciation in his eyes that has Q pulling him urgently into the bedroom for a good fuck. Other times, Q peeks into the sparring gyms in time to catch Bond pummel an opponent into the padded ground. The end result is much the same.  
  
There are missions, with or without each other on the other end of the line. Along with the missions are injuries, nightmares, and adrenaline fueled sex. Funnily enough, that sex is apparently solely with Q. Never would Q have expected Bond to be monogamous- in fact, it seemed almost paradoxical, a one-man Bond.

And yet…the beautiful women, targets and allies alike, are flirted with, seduced with words and hooded eyes, even kissed but never taken to bed. The rumor mill, which is at least as reliable as death and taxes, churns on, intrigued by this latest quirk in the infamous 007. At first, the support teams, which have come to expect periodic silences or suggestive noises after intense bouts of flirting, have no clue as to what, or who, has managed to get 007 to keep it in his extremely well tailored pants.  
  
A few months in, Q and Bond quietly meet with M. She offers a warning and a congratulations, all with the same half smile. At HQ they keep their hands off each other and the truth, which even against the wild fictions of the gossipmongers seems incredible, was mostly a secret for a remarkably long time in a building full of intelligence officers.  
  
They do their jobs, better than anyone else, and begin to build a life outside of MI6.

It’s good. It’s better than good, it’s wonderful, in a quiet but intense way. Bond never expected this type of companionship after his parents, after her and Q, well, Q had his own issues.  
  
But now, there is a call in the middle of a particularly rainy night that has Bond stumbling out of bed minus his characteristic grace. The text Q gets at the same time has him tripping out of their warm sheets as well, pulling on the nearest shirt (his agent’s, ripped off in their haste of a few hours past) and trousers.  
  
They speed into HQ, hurrying into M’s office. A terse conversation lets them know their haste was completely warranted; this is shaping up to be a complete disaster. Bond is handed a ticket to Turkey and they walk out together, ducking into a corner to share a brief kiss goodbye.  
  
“Perhaps,” Q murmurs onto Bond’s lips, “you’ll work your magic and this will be over quickly.” He has a feeling of wrongness creeping up his back, filling his mouth with something that tastes like foreboding.  
  
“Don’t jinx it,” his lover whispers back, already pulling back and letting his game face slide on. A short pause and a sudden peck on the lips surprise Q but not as much as what Bond says next.  
  
“I love you.” Another kiss stolen and then he is gone, not letting Q say a single word.  
  
Raising a hand to his lips, Q stares after him in shock, a fierce joy warring with the deepening sense of ill ease. Bond had never spoken of love before, neither of them had. While it was welcome  _(oh so welcome)_ , it made him think that maybe, in the pit of his stomach, Bond felt the storm coming ahead too.  
  
Less than a day later, Bond is saying “Yes Ma’am,” as he drives over a bazaar, is grunting with pain as a bullet hits under his collar bone, is fighting on the roof of a train. M’s office is listening and Q is perched on a chair with a computer, furiously working on tracking the hard drive. He tenses with every crashing barrel and glass breaking but his fingers remain steady until…  
  
“Take the bloody shot!”

The breathing of the female agent is loud in the room, drowning out the sound of the rain. A bullet is fired and the breathing stutters, grows heavy. Q is frozen.  
  
“Agent down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from “New Heights” by A Fine Frenzy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Q deals (and doesn't).
> 
> Please do check the trigger-warning at the chapter's end. It's nothing graphic but I'd rather be safe and warn you.

 

 

 
    
    
        **How can a body contain something so great
    My shell may suddenly burst, out will come birds**
      

“New Heights” ~ A Fine Frenzy

 

The cleanup crew can’t find a body. No, that’s not right, they found bodies, multiple ones. Ronson for one, the poor bastard.

But they didn’t find Bond’s.

Q had wanted to let himself hope but then the helpless, cynical lead cleanup agent muttered, “There’s a fuckin’ waterfall. If there’s anything to be found, it’d be a miracle.”

The agent was swatted hard by a pale-faced member of Q-branch. His people knew what Bond was to him. God, he’d already slipped into past tense. Jesus.

For a week, then two weeks, then more, Q searches. He taps into CCTV, hospital records, local police reports. He looks everywhere his electronic eyes can reach. He goes home to an elegant flat and stares at a straight razor on the sink, an empty tumbler next to an armchair. Eating, sleeping—these are things that fade into non-importance and he loses weight he cannot afford to lose. His eyes are circled with purple-black smudges and his fingers tremble when they lift from the keyboard.

When his electronic gaze fails him, he considers boarding a plane and dosing himself with valium. Turkey wasn’t so far away after all and there are always things missed by clean-up. But then there is a weary and wrecked Eve at the door to Q-branch, wings clipped and in need of something only Q can give her. Forgiveness maybe, or blame, he can’t tell, but it feels like penance.

She takes him to his dusty flat, where mail has piled up and the air feels stale. She shoves him towards the shower, starts picking up the mess once known as his flat, and calls for take away. Her silence when she sees a silk tie over the couch that most definitely does not belong to Q and a bottle of fine scotch resting next to an arm chair is a blessing.

After the forced meal, he’s led to the bed, its covers musty but with the scent of Bond’s cologne clinging faintly ( _stubbornly_ ) to one of the pillows. He clutches it and passes out from sheer exhaustion. He doesn’t dream but he awakens abruptly a mere four hours later.

It’s enough for now. Q refuses to think about the heavy arm that should be pulling him back to bed, about lips brushing against his jaw with a whisper. He refuses, but memories rush over him in a confused wave, until he does not know what he is longing for exactly. He is just left with an unbearable sense of _wrongness_.

So he gets up, pads to the bathroom where he stares into the wrecked, thin face before him and curses James Bond. A few minutes and he’s prepared to face the woman who shot him, who sent a metal projectile spinning through his lover’s body and sent him to a watery rest. There is a creeping feeling, now, that eats at his spine like acid, that whispers incessantly _a month and a half, no word, nothing, two gunshot wounds, a fucking waterfall, Jamesjamesjamesjames…_   

Eve is sleeping on his couch, curled up into a cushion with an afghan haphazardly covering her. She looks vulnerable, troubled, and guilt-ridden, even in slumber. A very small, very uncharitable part of Q murmurs, _'Good,'_ but everything else in him wanted to comfort her. It wasn’t her fault—it had been a judgment call in the field, a call that she hadn’t even made, and Q, who has guided dozens, perhaps hundreds of missions by now, knows how bloody difficult it is to judge a situation mid-fight, mid-mission.  When to pull the trigger, when not to—it came back to the comment James had made when they had first met, something about pyjamas. James.

He takes a chair and finds his gaze drawn toward a framed print of a painting hanging on his wall. Under the dusty oranges, blues, and greys, hidden by an innocuous, melancholy scene, is his gun-safe. He is Q, so of course there are weapons here, in his postage-stamp flat and at his fingertips.

Of course there is a gun coded to his palm, his unique biometrics.

And if it wouldn’t be easy, to quietly slide the print aside, to access the safe without waking the guilt-ridden killer, to cock the gun against the curls that a broad, rough hand loved to run through, it _would_ be simple, expected even. He wouldn’t have to wake up with the _wrongness_ , wouldn’t have to deal with the gnawing pit of a gut tugging at him every time he stepped into work, his home, _his_ home, the bloody café near bloody London Bridge…

A sharp pain shakes him back into reality. Looking at his arms, distant still, as if they belonged to someone else, he sees ten raw, vividly red half-moons dotting his paper-white skin. Forcing himself back into sense, he shakes his head roughly and pulls over his laptop, recriminations, relief, and disappointment running through the back of his head.

Bond would kill him.

Eve would kill herself.

He had promised, too, to himself and to James, after a late-night confession, that he would never step onto a path that was unfortunately rather familiar. He would get help, talk, anything but fall into the trap of not-so-easy but oh-so-simple.

Wry humour trickling back to him, Q mutters, “Simple was always tediously boring,” as he runs several search-and-recognition programs for 003 and 002. In the corner of his screen runs his own private, and he reaffirms, _never-ending_ , search. Bond ~~was~~  is an impossible man and an impossible agent—it would be idiocy, even betrayal, to give up hope in him now and if there is one thing Q isn’t, it's a faithless idiot.

And maybe…maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk to someone, as foreign as the idea was to an employee of MI-6, to him as a self-sufficient genius. _We’re_ supposed _to be dysfunctional, alcoholic, suic—, depressed artists_ , he thinks, smiling harshly _, and 00-s aren’t supposed to be gently prodding us to therapists. Ah, well, ‘supposed to’ is right up there with ‘simple.’ Boring as fuck_.

A few hours later, Eve wakes up and makes omelets while he brews them a pot of tea. They sit at the kitchen table, her eyes shifting between his face and her mug.

“Q.”

“Eve.”

She takes a shuddering breath at his even-toned reply.

“I, I shot, I…I _killed_ …”

Her pretty face crumples, the breakdown weeks in the making finally making its appearance. Q’s stomach churns at her words, though they have been swimming in the back of his mind all this time as well. Almost automatically, he stands and goes to her, gathering her to him, her face pressed against his stomach, arms clutching at his waist. When she is done sobbing, he goes to fetch a cool towel and cleans her face. Sniffing, she blinks reddened eyes up at him.

“I’m sorry Q, so bloody sorry.”

 The words are for him as much as James, acknowledgement of the tie, and the whiskey, and the manic searching of past weeks. And as her blood-shot, chocolate eyes stare into his, he realizes the words were also for that moment, a few hours ago, when he had stared at his wall and hadn’t seen a bloody big ship. 

Shuddering slightly, he lets her embrace him again and though he doesn’t speak, not to her, not to Eve with the gun in her hands, trigger pulled, he feels something in him unravel.

It isn’t ok, wouldn’t be ok without a bloody miracle dressed in Tom Ford delivered to his door, but it is better and he can still blindly, stubbornly cling to the very hope that had been escaping him. 

_James. Oh you bloody, fucking idiot. Be safe. Be alive._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with grief and thoughts about suicide. Q doesn't know Bond is alive and it's been an awfully long time. The mentions of suicidal thinking only last a few paragraphs but I did want to warn people ahead of time. 
> 
> Also, while I'm discussing it, let me just say:  
> If you ever feel on the edge of something like suicide or self-harm, or if you feel depressed or are at a difficult stage of grief, please do consider talking about it with someone, preferably someone with professional training and someone you can trust, but really, with anyone. There's always hope and you deserve the chance to feel it. Please know that there are people who care and want to talk to you. *Hugs and more hugs*
> 
> US: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)  
> UK: 08457 90 90 90  
> http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Bond and his luck (both bad and good).
> 
>  
> 
> Check out the warnings, yeah?

 

 

 

 
    
    
    **The calm of turbulent seas, fallen to sleep
    And when the troubles arise, we hold on tight**  
      
    
    "New Heights," A Fine Frenzy

 

The pain is…bad. More often than not, it reaches him in the dark place that should be far from the agony of his broken body. It stabs through him, taking away the breath that he doesn’t know he needs to take.

In his dreams he is still drowning, or trying to shout, or fucking Q so hard that they’ll both be feeling it tomorrow.

Bond doesn’t think he needs to breathe for these things, but the pain rather rudely lets him know that he needs air and simultaneously takes away his ability suck it into his lungs.

He drifts, sometimes hearing a rough, dulcet voice—the woman who has taken him in, he realizes, the third time he surfaces from dreams of screaming.

A doctor and a refugee, she speaks to him often, whether he is drifting or terribly aware. Her tanned, efficient hands take care of him to the best of her ability and in spite of her lack of tools.

She understands his desperate, bleary, “No hospital,” far too well.

And though she doesn’t understand his cries of, “ _Q!”_ she _knows_ the longing and fierceness behind the prayer the name becomes.

                                                                                                           (her own prayers have echoed a name for months)

The stranger had found him, doctored his wounds, given him her bed…a brave kindness, since he had a feeling, as fleeting as the rest of his thoughts, that in this part of the world a single woman taking a man to her bed, even for healing, could be damning. In a dusty corner of his mind, Bond registers and appreciates her care, understands that she is a professional and that he is, again, indescribably lucky.

Perhaps Q will be able to do something for her, a new identity, a passport… _Q_

Any other thoughts of gratitude are lost to a tide of agony and delirium.

                                                        (he doesn’t know it, but amid his feverish mutterings are broken words of thanks)

 

* * *

 

He dreams that he is underwater, in an iron elevator shaft, sinking.

Then darkness, because what else could come after drowning?

He dreams that he is cock-deep his lover’s ass, sweat slicking the space between them. One hand is clutching black, tousled hair somewhere on the edge of too tightly but hoarse encouragement lets him know it’s not enough, not yet…The warm body grinds back into his lap and his arm, golden against his lover’s pallor, is stretched across a narrow chest, welcoming him closer.

He dreams that he is fighting a man, as a dark green and brown bareness sweeps past them, the ground shaking and wind whipping his short hair. His arm is now braced against a sturdy, heaving chest, slipping up to the neck collared with the lives of unsuspecting men and women around the world.

He can feel the weight of their lives hanging around his own shoulders, made heavier by frantic commands from a tiny, grey-haired woman with resolution in her spine and determination etched into her skin.

In his dream, the words ** _, “Take the bloody shot!”_** feel like every bruise, every cut, every bullet wound that he has taken in Her service, all at once.  

He dreams of a perfect cup of coffee, handed to him by a man who would hate to be called perfect. He teases him, words slipping from his lips like laughter. _Hot, sweet, strong, rather milky._ In return, words like tart lemon, as sharp and biting as they are refreshing. _Idiot, proper drink, British aren’t you?_

This last dream doesn’t hurt, not like the real world or _takethebloodyshot_ or even the fierce, joyful fucking. It’s easy, light, and all he wants against the pain.

So of course, he slips back into nightmare, ghoulish and dark.

 

* * *

 

His body sinks deeper into the water, before stopping, suspended in blue clarity. He could stay here, alone, peacefully hanging in nothingness.

                                                                                                       (But no, not yet, he can’t stop yet, _doesn’t want to_.)

A hand grasps his, pulling him to the side and down, down, down. It disappears, only to reappear as large as a giant, tugging at his foot, like he’s a toy, limp and ragged. 

Through a sinkhole he falls and when he opens his eyes, it is to whispers of smoke and bleeding targets in his image.

Red seeps into the clear, blue water and a woman, her hair eerily waving as she peers at him, dominates his vision. Her slender body fools him for a moment, letting him imagine Q in her place, naked and dark hair rising as Bond falls. 

                                                                        (He feels more than sees his gun thump to a sandy bottom, lost to him.)

Then the water is gone, though the air feels syrup-thick to him as he passes through branches, to a moonlit graveyard. Tombstones fall from the air in the form of guns, guns big enough for the hand that had dragged him through a shadowy passage, and daggers that mock the crosses they land amongst.

A giant mansion of house looms in his vision, majestic and grimy in the red light suddenly pervading everything around him.  It is haunted, this house, and he knows it well, better almost than the face appearing before him. Picture still, his own eyes pierce him, until all of a sudden the photo-like image comes to life and becomes him as he is now, drifting.

He is among the columns of a tube station, shadowy enemies multiplying, from in front, behind, the left the right, all pasted to the ground, his own shadow quadrupled. He has his gun, and almost without thinking, shoots, pulls the trigger, because that’s what he’s been taught to do.

                          (Should he though? He feels like he would know if he were wearing pyjamas, cradling a cup of earl grey.)

He hits every one, a kill shot each time, the shadows whirling like a sick carnival game. Another rises to the wall, shot though the heart but deadly nonetheless, the most deadly of them all.

This is not James’ shadow—this one is no one’s shadow, no one’s dark side. This is a man whose darkness is his own and deeper than any shadow.

As the figure gains definition, Bond cannot identify him. A disturbing grin as he cocked his own gun at him was all that registered before he vanished and Bond was again alone.

Blood bloomed in rusty veins through the cerulean water as he found himself drowned once more, spreading until he was enveloped in more blood than water, rivers of red weaving and twisting organically. A beating heart, a skull, a woman with a gun; Q would be laughing himself sick at the imagery his lover’s subconscious had come up with.

The barrel of her gun drew him in and he was surrounded by the targets once more, flaming, burning, and falling up. A colorful dragon belched fire into his face and faces blurred before him, devious and _wrong._

Then all is black and white, a terrible kaleidoscope of women, guns, and that **_fucking house._** _Fuck._

It’s like an amalgamation of his past sins, stark and dancing in front of his eyes. Skulls, daggers, graves and he is falling through a grave with his name on it, but he knows it does not belong to him. He has touched that gravestone himself, traced the letters freshly cut into granite, and turned his back on them. 

Rising, he walks in a valley of death, or, at the least, a corridor of mirrors, reflecting his image over and over again. Like an automaton, he shoots, again and again. Should he? A kingdom for a cup of tea and his lover’s pyjama-clad arms…Lacking an answer, he pulls the trigger, a clock-work soldier to the last.

                                         (All he manages to do is break himself, taking those shots, into a thousand shards of glass.)

A red haze claims him, blood raining down from a scarlet sky, over that tomb he once called home.

He has another home now, wherever a slender, pale genius puts down his laptop and pulls Bond to him.

But lost in his bloody, wretched dreams, he despairs of ever getting back to him, to home.

 

* * *

 

Slowly, James is dragged back from his world of nightmares, dreams, and darkness, back to a body brutally injured and barely patched together.

When he is able to, he explains to the worried, clinical eyes of the woman in front of him, that he cannot go to the local hospital over 20 miles away. Haltingly, tongue thick with disuse, he weaves a story that is far closer to truth than he’d like.

(He’s a British agent, enemies are waiting/watching, he can repay her—)

She waves her hand, cutting him off. Healing wasn’t something she did for payment and she had found his battered dog tags on his equally battered body early on. Those (along with her gut feeling about him) and a certain medical oath, were enough reason for her to trust him enough to help.

“I cannot remove the bullet fragments—you are still on the edge of fever, your wounds infected, and there is far too much stress on your body.”

Hand hovering but not touching, she points out the various parts of his body that are still healing, two weeks after she had found him.

“Clavicle, broken. Right femur, broken, left, fractured. 7 fractured phalanges.” She goes on and stresses the fact that he is very, very fortunate to be alive.

He nods, before stilling when she asks if there is anyone she should contact.

_Q. Oh god, I wish…but the assassin presumably walks free. I can’t. Not yet, if there is interception of any kind, I won’t be able to fight back against what will inevitably come chasing._

The realization is painful, but worse is the fear he feels creeping into him at the thought of what his lover might consider, might _do_ , thinking he is dead…

 _No, I have to trust his word, his strength. He won’t._ He won’t. _I’ll bloody well_ kill _him myself if he does._

Shaking his head, he turns his face away from his saviour as much as he can. A brief pause quiets the room, one of two in the makeshift hut. Then she joins him on the bed, stroking his hair gently, platonically, offering what comfort she can and ignoring the wetness shining on his bruised and stubbled face.

He stares blindly at the wooden walls surrounding them, breathes in the scent of sand, sweat, citrus, and antiseptic, and tries to ignore the pain.

 

* * *

 

 

It is over a month before he thinks he might be able to defend himself well enough to get back to England. His fractures have healed, the dozens of stitches have been removed, and though he is as weak as a fucking kitten, at least he can hide it behind a gruff beard, silence, and a devil-may-care attitude.

He takes on the role of a weary, drunk American, accent perfect and persona tailored to give an impression of bravado and near-suicidal carelessness. There is some showboating with scorpions that gets him enough petty cash for a plane ticket and a decent passport, and just enough alcohol to dull the pain. He hadn’t taken anything stronger than grunt candy in two weeks and the ache was fierce.

Finally, _finally_ , he feels he can send something to Q. He’s almost ready and at this point, the risk of being discovered is somewhat less suicidal and worth getting into contact with his lover.

He chooses an inconspicuous postcard from the bar, one with a generic picture of a random beach, not the one he’s on and probably not even in the country. Busty women, tanned and curvy, grace the white sand and the cheesy message printed in lurid pink comic sans offends every bit of taste he possess. Staring at it, he wonders, as he has before, if Q would forgive him for his absence, for dropping off the map, presumably dead.

Suddenly grinning, he murmurs, “This monstrosity won’t exactly put me in his graces.”

Still smiling at the thought of Q’s typical reaction to comic sans, he quickly writes a single word in the message space, before addressing it to a post-office box under a dummy name, attaching a stamp, and sending it on its way. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter starts to earn the story's explicit rating, though just in flashback dreams. Suicide is mentioned again, and rather nasty injuries. Violent imagery raises its ugly mug too. 
> 
> Fun chapter, right? 
> 
> Oh, also, might I recommend watching the Skyfall intro again? (the one with Adele singing).


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An attack. 
> 
>  
> 
> As always, please see notes for trigger warnings!

**you only need the light when it's burning low**

"Let Her Go" ~ Passenger

 

When Q received the battered card, post-marked from Turkey, tucked in with the rest of his morning post, his heart seemed to forget its need to beat.

When he flipped it over to read the message, it remembered with a vengeance, sending Q’s pulse racing, blood thundering in his ears, breath uneven and hands shaking.

_Soon_

_Soon_. That was all the garish, cheap, piss-poor excuse for a postcard said. _Soon._

“Mother-fucking bastard,” he said calmly, to himself. The word blurred in his vision, wobbling in and out of focus. Thick tears dripped onto the stiff paper, salty and hot.

Then he was laughing, laughing as he cried, because the _fucking bastard was alive_.

Anger broiled somewhere in his gut but in that moment, pure relief overpowered him. His idiot wasn’t there, wasn’t home yet, but he also wasn’t buried six-feet deep in the earth, or worse, lost in an anonymous body of water.

Putting his head down on crossed arms, he sat at his kitchen table for a long time, soaking the card and letting the knowledge that somewhere out there his lover was _alive_.

 

* * *

 

Bond is more than ready to leave the quiet beach where he has been trapped but his savior, doctor, and, he suspected, friend, firmly “suggested” that he needed to consider surgery for the shrapnel still caught in his body. Barring that, he needed another few days, at the least, to let her safely remove the remaining stitches that, for a long while, had been all that were holding him together.

Grumbling, antsy, and all-together of the mind that he should be on a plane by now, he conceded ungracefully. Every day she examined him, removing stitches that crawled like black worms across his body, splints, and bandages.

Between her examinations, he went to the beach-side bar, by now a loyal patron. It was the only public location with satellite T.V. and as much as it rankled to be shut out from it, he needed to keep abreast of what was going on in the world.

Two and a half weeks after the post-card to Q was sent, he was sitting at the bar, a glass of something dark, golden-brown and strong in his hand, when CNN reported its latest breaking news. Wolf Blitzer’s grey head appeared next to footage of...

Bond nearly knocked over his drink in his haste to turn fully to the screen.

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck._

He needed to be back in London. _Now_.

 

* * *

 

 

“Soon” turns out to be weeks, weeks of _pure hell_ , during which Q is forced to put his search off to the side and focus on increasingly suspicious behavior in MI-6’s servers. He is at work everyday, for hours on end, distracting himself from wondering when “soon” would happen, why it was taking so bloody long, what could keep Bond from returning to England…

It is almost worse, now, knowing that James was out there, alive. Because the hope that he had been carefully keeping alive (but not allowing to overwhelm him) was suddenly spilling out uncontrollably. Every dark blonde man he passed made him twitch in anticipation. Every phone call, email, and alert was like a jolt to his spine.

And, alongside his perilously strong hope, worry churned anew in his gut. After all, what was keeping Bond away, if not trouble, danger, injury…

Tiny, whispering insecurities under it all suggested that _Q_ wasn’t worth hurrying home for, that Bond had met a gorgeous woman, or hell, man, and was relaxing somewhere on a beach, out of the game that was their job, their lives.

Trying to push it all aside, through all the terrible relief and insecurity, he works. Something’s rotten in MI-6 and he _needs_ to find it.

He’s aware (of course he’s aware, they all are) that M and their organization was under fire from the government but Q suspected something more terribly insidious under the surface.

On the day M and Tanner go to meet with Mallory, Q is in his lab at headquarters, surrounded by techs, analysts, and junior agents; a horde Bond affectionately called Q’s minions.

Something simply wasn’t right in the servers and it was driving Q to distraction. He furiously scoured the digital web that cradled MI-6, coming close several times to the source of the _wrongness_ but always moments behind. He was being led on a bloody chase and it terrified him.

He was, quite honestly and without arrogance, among the best of the best in the shadowy world of programming, hacking, and all around technological genius. If there was someone mucking about their ( _his)_  systems and able to lead _him_ on a merry chase…well, they might very well be fucked royally.

Grunting in frustration, he shoved away the keyboard he had been frantically pounding. It might just be time to put MI-6 in lockdown, electronically and, possibly, physically. He was reaching from his secure cell phone when he felt it.

A strange ringing in the air, a physical _wrongness_ echoing what he had found in the servers.

Then hell broke loose.

 

* * *

  

Bond is willing the airplane to go faster, to magically accelerate, to break the bloody laws of fucking physics, _anything_ to get him home faster.

Q.  Q had been in the building. The agent knew it was true in a way he couldn’t explain; he just _knew_.

Worry for the agents he knew and was cautious friends with, for M, for Tanner buzzed under his skin but heavier, more consuming, was the fear he felt for his lover.

“Four months,” he breathed out, reaching for the soda balanced precariously on the flimsy tray in front of him. He’d love to try and drown the fierce anxiety that coursed through him with something terribly strong and biting but he needed all his wits about him.

He also had a more than fleeting suspicion that it wouldn’t do a damn thing about the fear.

 _Four months._ Four months in Q’s bed, in his life, and he was pinned _(irrevocably, painfully, wonderfully)_  in James' heart. 

As he sipped his coke, he automatically ran through various enemies with the capabilities and strong enough grudge against MI-6 to arranged such an attack. The list, at least for the latter condition, was dizzyingly long. But in the back of his mind, his thoughts lingered on Q.

It had been nearly three months since he had fallen from the top of a train into the depths of a river and terrifyingly strong nightmares. Three months, nearly the same amount of time they had been together. Would Q have moved on? James wasn’t arrogant enough to believe it wasn’t possible. Q was young, brilliant, and gorgeous in and out of his garish jumpers.

Honestly, though the thought drove spikes of pain through his jaded heart, Bond didn’t care as long as he was safe and alive.

He had a feeling, though, that Q was waiting for him.

James Bond was as cynical about love as a man could be. He had used his eyes, his crooked grin, and his body with near clinical precision when in pursuit of a mark or to gain information. His heart was harder to engage but he had felt stirrings of affection, infatuation, even a type of love with Vesper. Disappointment and disillusionment fell like shadows in the wake of those moments of emotional connection. Nothing had ever lasted, had ever been honest.

But with Q…

He wanted to scoff at his own thoughts, wanted to bury them as romantic drivel, but he couldn’t avoid the fact that Q was his match, in everything. He was strong, genius, temperamental, damaged, beautiful, painfully sweet at the oddest moments, fucked like a god, honest in his touches…

Bond had been drawn to him the moment he had laid eyes on him, in front of a painting of a worn-down ship being hauled away to be transformed into something new. And Q, whether he knew it or not, had hauled James away and made him something new, something better. And he suspected, from the surprised, tender look that could sometimes be found in Q's eyes, that he had done a similar service for the Quartermaster. 

 _Four months._  Fuck that. He wanted a lifetime.

  

* * *

 

 

Hell was dusty. And tasted bad. And was terribly loud.

Possibly Q had a concussion.

A wall had quite nearly fallen on him _(or had Q almost fallen on it? He felt vaguely apologetic)_ , though, so he felt he deserved one.

Alarms blared and smoke billowed. His minions _(his people)_ were strewn like rag dolls over desks, the floor, each other.

Glancing around and reorienting himself, he saw a few stirring, others knocked unconscious, and one or two terrifyingly still.

Shaking his head, he coughed, plaster dust covering him. His head was clearing _(not a concussion then, just shock)_ and he managed to get to his feet, wincing as he felt bruises beginning to bloom under his clothes. He moved to the lifeless looking technicians who hadn’t quite avoided the bit of wall that had come crashing his way.

Checking pulses, he was relieved to find them alive. With more and more movement around him, he gave orders to get everyone up and out of the building. Ideally, the injured _(and the blood, unnatural angles of limbs, and dazed eyes shouted injury)_ wouldn’t be moved for fear of spinal injury, but without knowledge of what was going on, they couldn’t stay here.

He sucked in a dusty breath, only to choke on it. He had never felt the mantle of leadership so heavily before, standing there, in front of two-dozen people _(his people)_ and giving them orders that might save their lives or paralyze their co-workers.

Q-branch was located on the basement level of HQ—whatever had hit them had probably done so in the upper floors, sparing them the worst of the attack but leaving them in a precarious situation structurally. Luckily, there was an emergency exit that would lead them deeper underground before emerging safely on the other side of the river.

Organizing his people, sending the less shaken to aid the injured and struggling, Q shut his mind to the possibilities of what other departments were suffering.

He had to get Q-branch evacuated. Now.

The emergency passage was long, and smelled of wet, decaying stone, but it got them out, into the fresh air and among startled Londoners who immediately pulled out phones and called for help. Absent-mindedly, Q felt stirrings of fondness for his fellow city-dwellers. London had a reputation for rather rude inhabitants at times but they did tend to come through for each other in a crisis.

Finally looking across the river they had essentially tunneled under, Q froze. He had expected damage to HQ, had known that anything that had rocked them so fiercely in the basement had to have been terribly strong, but seeing the smoke rising from a dark crater in his workplace felt like a new bruise, worse than any of the others littering his body.

As he watched the black smoke, curling from what looked like a wound on the building’s surface, he was both glad _(for the first time)_ that James was not here and desperately wishing he had his lover at his side. 

A groan shook him from his thoughts, and grounded him in the present. Steeling himself, he set his face and went to work helping the wounded

Later, after he was released from hospital and had checked the status of every single one of his people _(all alive, thank god)_ , he went answered M's summons. Tedious hours were filled with reports, debriefing, and most importantly, setting up emergency headquarters. He worked and delegated and got his hands dirty for hours, until his head ached and he stumbled as he tried to walk to another station. M herself intervened then, demanding he go and rest ("And take a bloody shower.")

He flirted for a moment with the idea of going to James’ flat, the one that he had dusted, kept ready, and on occasion, slept in, wrapped in a soft button up several size too big. But strangely, he felt closer to his lover at his own flat, and now, he needed that illusory comfort.

The explosions had gone off nearly 48 hours ago, feeling at once as if years had passed and as if the blast had only begun minutes ago.

Q was exhausted, angry, and fucking sad.

The initial casualty count wasn’t terribly high, considering how many people were in the building at the time, but the loss of even one life would have been tragic. That 6 and counting were dead, when just two days ago they had probably been laughing, arguing, eating, stressed, kissing partners, _living_ …

They all lived with the knowledge that death was tagging along behind them, that as employees of MI-6 they faced a greater danger walking into work than if they had chosen to crunch numbers for a bank or teach at a university. It didn’t make it any easier to deal with the deaths of colleagues, especially on their home turf. At least, out in the field, the danger was obvious and violence expected.

Sighing, he opened his front door, dismantling the security absentmindedly. Tired and honestly, heart-sick, he went straight to the bottle of alcohol that had sat for the last three months on his coffee table, gathering dust. He hadn’t let Eve touch it in her frantic cleaning, and so it sat, next to a finely cut crystal tumbler, waiting.

He wiped at it clumsily, tiredly, before opening it and taking a swig, not bothering with a glass. Putting it down, he registered something, _someone_ , standing motionless in the shadows near a curtained window.

Cursing himself for being caught off guard, he reached for the gun tucked into a hidden holster, only to freeze as the man murmured his name, desperately, sharply, in the particular way that only one man could.

“ _Q_.”

The bottle of whisky, older than either of them, slipped from his hand, shattering into a mess of glass on the wooden floor, another broken victim of the last few days.

“ _James._ ”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note about time: Between Bond being found and going back to the UK, there’s about 2.5-3 months. He spends some time in a coma, then just out of it, then healing further. So, the time he’s gone is about canonical.
> 
> Warnings: Language of course, aftermath of violence, onset of violence, etc. This chapter’s main warning is for the canon bombing of MI-6’s headquarters. Q is in the building and part of this chapter is from his perspective. Unfortunately, in today’s world there might be those of you who have had experiences with attacks like that and I don’t want to accidently trigger anything.
> 
> I’m better understanding the need for trigger warnings—while visiting Buckingham Palace for the change of the guard recently, my best friend and I were both negatively surprised by canons going off in Green Park and the accompanying smoke. She lives close to Boston and was under lock-down during the Marathon bombings, while I was close enough to one of the 9-11 sites to hear the attack.
> 
> I would never have said I was especially traumatized by that day. But when those canons went off, there was this fear, this dreadful expectation, which was quite unpleasant.
> 
> Back to point, I don’t want to trigger anyone who might have similar or very likely, worse, memories. I don’t spend much time on that scene, but I do discuss it and Q’s experiences.
> 
> Hopefully, someday we’ll live in a world where terrorism is a thing of the past, and we aren’t haunted by memories and fear.
> 
> Until then, this is a trigger warning: discussion/description of a canonical terrorist attack.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reunion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. Guuuyyysss. This is the porniest thing I have ever written. It is explicit.  
> And though I tried to just make it porny, somehow FEELS snuck in. Dammit.

 

**home, let me come home. home is wherever I'm with you.**

"Home" ~ Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes 

Q stared at him, his lover, face worn, roughly bearded, and carrying extra years lived out in the last few months. He knew the same years were on his face, in dark clouds beneath his eyes and tiny lines of strain around his mouth.

He stared and then they were in each other’s arms, wrapped tight, not kissing but embracing fiercely. Q knew if they had tried to kiss their lips would have come away bloodied.

Drawing back after a long moment, tears clouding his vision, he pummeled Bond weakly with a clenched fist.

A barely perceptible flinch ran through Bond’s body.

Q froze, remembering the shots, the sound of bullets entering his lover’s body. He tore at Bond’s shirt, button-down but of considerably less value than his agent’s normal bespoke fare.

Usually, Bond would have been making jokes about eagerness and irresistibility, but either he senses that’s not what Q needs to hear right now or he’s too bloody tired to exercise his customary charm.

Shirt pried open, Q ran shaking fingers over the puckered wound on his chest, so close to his heart. He turned the other man around, pulling his shirt down farther, tracing the other fresh scars now decorating the tan skin.

Seeing how close he had been to death shook Q, and his head dropped to the broad back before him, fists clenching in the shirt. Bond was still at first but he then reached without looking to pull Q’s arms around him, gently stroking the tense hands now meeting at his middle.

“I’m sorry it took me so long. I was…not well,” Q tensed at the hoarse admission but Bond went on. He and Q had agreed months ago that honesty was the only way to deal with the 00’s frequent injuries.

“Fractures, bullet wounds, infection in one of those, abrasions, lacerations, a very bad concussion…” Bond hesitated for a fraction of a second before pushing on with the laundry list of wounds. “A coma, for a bit.”

A low moan escaped Q and in a blur, Bond was turned around and they were kissing, gently, for all that they were both on a hair-trigger, but thoroughly.

It couldn’t be called memorizing each other or mapping out their lover’s mouth—neither had the attention or conscious thought for anything beyond tasting, feeling. 

The rest of Bond’s clothes were dealt with and Q found himself naked faster than he would have thought possible, if he had spared any thought to anything other than his desperate, sudden _need_ to have James in him.

They stumbled to towards the bedroom but fell onto the couch, uncharacteristically clumsy in their blind need. They traded open, dirty kisses before James pulled away from his mouth and knelt in front of his lover’s hard cock, jutting out from his slender body.

Licking up its length, he swirled his tongue around the head before eagerly swallowing him whole. Q gasped, drawing in ragged breaths, his hands indelicately grabbing at Bond’s ears. In the back of his rather occupied mind, he remembered the first time he had confessed his slight fascination with his lover’s ears, lying together in bed one morning.

Bond had been nonplussed for a moment before a strangely innocent smiled had crept onto his face and he had laughed, a deep, unrestrained belly laugh, and kissed him breathless. It was one of the first times Q had realized he could love this man, with his dark past, sweet smiles, and funny, endearing ears.

Now, Bond drew back and stood, helping a shaky, very, very aroused Q to his feet and then sweeping him into a bridal hold, grunting at the effort in a way he hadn’t the last time they had been together.

Before Q could protest (the indignity, Bond’s wounds, the manhandling) they were in the bedroom and he had been placed gently onto the bed. He tried to frown disapprovingly but James’ dark, almost black eyes prompted him to kiss him instead, while fumbling to reach the bedside drawer for lube and condoms.

Finding them, he shoved them in Bond’s hand, unable to summon up the presence of mind to open the bottle, let alone the foil packet. When Bond made no move to open it, or a condom, Q impatiently thrust his hips against him.

“What?” Bond was smiling. “Same bottle.” Q was confused for half-a-second before his face cleared.

“You numpty, I thought you were _dead_ , I was spending hours, days even at M-I6 looking for you. I wasn’t eating, or sleeping, or doing any of the things normal people do.” Seeing his lover’s concern, he stroked the craggy, handsome face before him. “I was a mess, I survived, but I certainly wasn’t up for wanking.”

Picking up the bottle himself and fumbling with it, he managed to open it. “And just in case you were wondering, I wasn’t having it on with anyone else either.”

James shook his head,” I wouldn’t have blamed you…”

Tired of talking, Q slicked his own fingers and began stroke his hole, liberally covering it with lube and teasing himself open.

“Is there something I should blame you for?” He was more than fairly certain Bond hadn’t done anything with anyone since he had kissed him goodbye three months ago but it felt nice to get confirmation in the form of Bond’s quiet, firm “No.”

Q found his hand quickly moved aside and blunt, callused fingers taking its place, cleverly relaxing the tight ring of muscle and leaving him free to roll a condom onto Bond’s cock quickly, before surrendering to delightful waves of pleasure spreading through his body. They were both on edge enough that when Q gasped out, “Go faster, faster, more, need you,” Bond complied, abandoning a lengthy, sensuous preparation for a faster, rougher, dirtier prep.

When he felt ready, Q guided his lover’s hot, heavy length to him and reveled in the feel of James slowly pushing into him, fierce strength reigned in at first. Careful strokes were coaxed into harder, forceful thrusts by Q’s demanding, enthusiastic response.

He moaned, loving the press of his lover against the whole of his body, _into_ his body, words breathing out along with the guttural cries. “Yes, more, more, here, you’re here, harder, fuck, harder.”

His lover nearly sobbed in response, desperate, relieved, tearless cries. Q raised his head to look up into his agent’s bloodshot blue eyes, heart hurting even as his body sang.

“James,” he sighed, pulling him down for a kiss and breaking the rough rhythm they had established. He held him in place and they dragged out the kiss, still moving against each other mindlessly, until Q gently pushed Bond up and maneuvered him onto his back.

Looking up at him, James appeared vulnerable in a way he never should and it tugged at Q’s heart.

“I’m here. I’m safe. You’re safe.”

Trailing fingers down his lover’s body, he caressed the areas where torn skin had healed, the neat marks of stitches evident across his torso and limbs, ignoring for a moment both of their rampant arousals.

“You won’t die.” The words were rough, emotion making his voice huskier than normal.

“You won’t die. You won’t leave me.” They were a command, a statement, a plea.

James closed his eyes and turned his head away from Q, only for them to fly open as Q straddled him, grasped his cock in a firm hand, and guided it back to his still loose hole. Teasing them both by rubbing the engorged head over his entrance, he went on, gasping a bit when James’ rough hands came up to pinch his nipples.

“You’ll promise,” he sank down, slowly, onto the thick, throbbing length. “You’ll _try_.” He suddenly pushed down entirely, relishing the burn, the gasp from Bond, the fierce pleasure of feeling his lover within him. He drove down harder, frantically riding him.

“Pro-promise me.”

And James was meeting him, hips flexing, and swearing under his breath, “Fuck, I’ll try, I promise, I’ll try, for you, god, Q…”

Q came suddenly, without warning, and it was so good it hurt. Vision whiting out, he slumped, clutching at Bond and still instinctively moving with him.

His agent gently guided him onto the sheets, still connected, still thrusting.

It felt so good, to be close to him, surrounded by his hot, sweaty, _living_ body. He rode out the buzz of his orgasm as James moved in and out of him, every push an affirmation of his presence. He stroked the broad expanse of his back with one hand, the other resting possessively on the pulse thrumming away in his neck.

“James, Jamesjamesjames…” The name was a chant, breathy and meaningless, yet meaning everything he couldn’t quite articulate at the moment.

His lover’s body seized almost violently as he came, face buried in Q’s neck, rough beard scratching pale skin. Bond shuddered through it, tears wetting Q’s skin.

“I’ll try.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q, Bond, and the new HQ.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be a more plotty, more moving along the pace chapter and it is, kind of. But somehow FEELS snuck in and then porn. Oops.

 

  
**When all of your flaws and all of my flaws**   
**Are laid out one by one**   
**A wonderful part of the mess that we made**   
**We pick ourselves undone**

"Flaws" ~ Bastille

“I wore your shirt for three days.”

The words spilled out of Q without inflection, as he rested at Bond’s side, carefully keeping away from the still healing wounds.

Bond ran a hand down Q’s side and said nothing, feeling the sweat dry over both their bodies. They lay tangled together gracelessly, needing to be close.

“The day you left, we stumbled out of bed, and I grabbed your shirt. I was at headquarters for hours, didn’t have time to go home, and then you were in Turkey, and then she, she shot you, and I, I...the shirt…I couldn’t…you…”

Emotion had been rising in the quartermaster’s voice and as he trailed off, he tried to turn away from Bond and hide his tears.

James wouldn’t have it and tucked him closer, his heart hurting for the other man.

  
Voice gravelly, he whispered, “I was caught in nightmares for days, weeks. The only good that I dreamt of was you.”

Q sniffed. Loudly. Then he shook himself and began rebuilding his armor of collectedness and calm. There would be time, he told himself, for sniveling and confessions of love, after the bastards responsible for all the shit in their lives were brought _down._

“Rather sentimental 007,” he drawled half-heartedly in James’ ear, the fierce hold on the agent belying the dismissive statement and the soft kiss on a funny ear revealing his appreciation for the words.

A moment later, calmer and curious, Q asked and received a basic explanation of what had happened to the agent in the last 3 months. In return, he updated Bond on what little he knew of the attack. They slept soon after, exhausted in body, mind, and soul, entirely spent but satisfied and secure with each other.

 

* * *

 

 

After far too short a spell resting in bed, Q and Bond found themselves up, dressed, and in an unmarked car driven by Tanner.

There had been a manly, gruff welcome from M’s assistant, complete with a handclasp that verged on a hug.

“007. Glad to see you among the living.”

“Tanner. Glad to be here.”

Without further ado, they were on their way, winding through London’s uneven streets with seemingly random turns and stops. Rather quickly, they arrived at a guarded gate, passing through and going underground.

After a brief introduction to the new HQ, Tanner dragged Bond off for fitness testing.

Q watched them go with some trepidation, eyes troubled. As enjoyable and frankly bloody brilliant last night was, Q had seen, felt, _tasted_ the numerous scars marring his lover’s skin. He had heard his heart race and limbs tremble in a way they never would have three months ago.

Bond wasn’t ready for active duty.

And by the grim set of the agent’s lips he knew it.

He kept an electronic eye on James’ progress as he himself worked on set up in Q-branch. They were vulnerable, sitting in this makeshift tangle of technology. He could feel the villain of the piece creeping closer and was desperately trying to build-up enough of a defense to keep the agency safe in their ramshackle fortress.

A small screen to his right showed Bond straining to do crunches Q had seen him pump through like bullets from a machine gun.

Then he was clutching a pull-up bar, was slumping, chest heaving in agony.

And finally, he was in front of a target, shooting, missing, _failing._ Q actually had to re-watch the footage twice to understand that James Bond, _007_ , had underscored a green recruit in shooting.

He felt panic claw at the edges of his mind, threatening to burst past the carefully taped and glued together barrier of calm that he had hidden behind since the attack and only had briefly let go the night before.

James was going to go out in the field. M would let him, would _have_ to let him, because there was no one else who had the instinct, the knowledge, creativity, the  _drive_ to fucking get the job done.

And he couldn’t shoot, literally, to save his life.

Fuck. 

 

* * *

 

 

Fuck.

Bond sat, sweat cooling in a mess over his skin, and fought the unfamiliar urge to cry.

His body was failing him. He knew rationally, that he was still healing from some very critical injuries, that what he was doing now might be considered extraordinary, foolhardy, perhaps unbelievable in any other patient in his condition.

But, for fuck’s sake, he _had_ to be ready.

If his body failed him now, then Bond failed MI-6, M, England, _him_.

They had all been attacked, all been savaged. And now they needed protection.

He knew Q was watching, was always watching, and though he normally took comfort in his electronic omnipotence, he had a very clear image of what he must look like now.

Broken, beaten, weak, old dog.

His chest twinged painfully and he reached up to rub it. It needed to come out, the remnant of the bullet. The shrapnel was throwing his entire center of balance off, muscles pulling and faltering in ways they shouldn’t, compensating for the foreign body lodged in his skin and muscle.

This, at least, was something he could take care of. 

 

* * *

 

He had found and sterilized a wickedly sharp knife in rubbing alcohol when Q caught up with him, in a dank restroom far from the rest of MI-6’s settlement.

“What do you think you’re doing,” Q asked evenly.

Bond solemnly looked at him and replied just as evenly.

“A bit of recreational surgery.”

The air was tense, filled with anticipation, before Q held out his hand, long, pale fingers asking for the knife.

Bond squared his shoulders, painfully, bearded jaw set stubbornly. “Q it needs to come out, now.”

Eyes narrowing, Q bit out, “I bloody well know that and I bloody well know that you would rather bugger off down here instead of go to medical and get _professionals_ to do the blasted job.”

Hand now reaching insistently, he continued. “But you need help to get this done safely and quickly so give me the knife and let me join in the _fun_ of recreational surgery.”

Bond met his eyes and looked almost remorseful for a moment, before relinquishing the knife to his lover, who stuck it back in the rubbing alcohol for a moment.

Pulling a small packet from his trousers, Q removed a localized anesthetic, gauze, and medical tape.

At Bond’s surprise, he merely stated quietly, “I know you rather well, you bloody, foolish idiot.”

Then he stepped forward, picking up the knife, and quickly tugged the standard issue tee-shirt away from Bond’s chest, expertly slicing it down the middle.

It was sudden, controlled, and furious. 

It was also terrified, terrifying, and bloody arousing.

Pupils dilated, James felt his breath stop for a moment.

Calmly putting the knife down again, Q applied the topical anesthetic, which doubled as an antibiotic, clinically.

“Three minutes,” he murmured dispassionately, finishing, stripping off the gloves he had used, and standing close to Bond.

Then he turned his face up and kissed the taller man fiercely, grinding frantically against him, careful not to displace the medicine on his chest. He pulled at the grey sweatpants and boxer-briefs until they fell to Bond’s feet, following their path down his body until he was on his knees, level with James’ arousal.

He dragged his hands down thighs lightly covered in blonde, coarse hairs, resting his head on the trembling muscles briefly before taking the long, heavy cock into his mouth, greedily.

A grunt sounded above him but he focused his considerable attention on sucking, licking, and humming, until James’ abdominal muscles began to strain with tension, signaling he was close, in record time. At this familiar movement, Q pulled away.

Mouth glistening, he shot a filthy grin at the agent, who looked tortured, hanging on to control by a thread, and firmly grasped the base of his lover’s cock.

“I’m here for you James Bond, and you’d best not forget that.” Kissing the crown of the rock hard cock, he swallowed it whole, pulling James to him by the hips, urging him to fuck his mouth, to lose the tenuous control the agent held onto.  And he did. 

Helplessly thrusting forward, James caught his hands in Q’s hair, frantically fucking into his mouth, watching his cock disappear in and out of stretched, spit-slickened lips.  It was utterly obscene and utterly glorious.

He had no presence of mind to warn Q when he came, spilling into his lover’s mouth, but Q just swallowed again and again, ready and willing for every last drop.

As Bond rested, trembling against the wall he had somehow been backed into, Q licked him clean and gently pulled his clothing back into place, before going to a nearby sink, washing his hands thoroughly, donning a new pair of gloves, and, taking the knife in hand, cutting out the bullet.

James stared at him as he worked, attention focused on the smear of white still on Q’s chin. He didn’t feel the blade cutting into him, pain driven away by the anesthetic, endorphins, and the consuming image of his lover licking his lips absently, as if he was savoring a favorite taste.

When the “recreational surgery” was finished, Q stitched and bandaged him, washed the fragments off and bagged them, and finally refused, gently, the offer of reciprocation.

“Back to work,” he murmured, kissing the agent, before leaving him alone in the loo to stare after him in awe and, gradually, grateful amusement.

 

* * *

 

 

Q knew he should be back at his desk but after leaving Bond to get the shards to an analyst, he couldn’t help but head towards the room that the psych evaluation was going to be held in.

Taking a seat behind the one-way glass, he waited, nodding in welcome, and slight defiance, to M when she arrived. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing, nodding in return.

A few more people trickled in, including a man Q knew was Gareth Mallory, though he had never met him before. They all ignored him, seeing his ruffled clothes and laptop, assuming he was a tech recording the session, and so he settled in to watch the oncoming storm.

Bond walked into the white room and sat across from the psychologist, throwing a disdainful look to the hidden room. Q mentally sighed while a small smile worked its way to the corner of his mouth. His lover _hated_ psychologists.

The frazzled looking doctor began a word association exercise.

Looking belligerent but resigned, Bond answered, a cocky smirk hidden in each of his witty answers until…

“Skyfall.”

Q closed his laptop and sat up straight in alarm as he watched Bond stiffen, rage creeping into his movements, tightly controlled but burning hot.

“ _Done.”_ He walked out without another word.

Q looked at M for answers, but she was caught in a wordless exchange with Mallory.

 _Skyfall_. Q had no idea what it could mean, why it would trigger such an emotional response. He was familiar with pieces of Bond’s file, those relevant to missions and such, but he had never had a real desire to dig into Bond’s file, preferring to let his partner tell him honestly and straightforwardly about his past. And he _was,_ slowly but surely, opening up. However, Skyfall wasn’t anything that Q had ever heard him mention.

Damn it. Like they needed another problem in this cluster-fuck of a situation.

 

* * *

 

Bond showered and dressed himself in the suit that he had arrived at HQ in before heading to find M’s new office to learn his fate, all the while ignoring the leaden whisper of _Skyfallskyfallskyfall_ in the back of his head. 

He ran into Eve on his way and for a moment, he could see the barely veiled panic, guilt, and wariness in her chocolate eyes before she smiled and cockily walked closer to him.

He admired her ability to compartmentalize: Q’s admission of her visit revealed she was obviously affected by shooting him but she hid it well. They bantered for a few minutes before Tanner appeared to lead him to M’s office where he sat and glared at the chipped and glued together piece-of-shit figurine on the leader of M-I6’s desk.

Old dog, broken body barely held together, still at the heart of M-I6’s HQ. Bond could see far too many parallels in that broken tourist-trap toy to be comfortable.

Without fanfare, M lied and told him he passed the test. Bond knew she was lying, and why, and when Gareth Mallory walked in and accused her of sentimentality, he laughed in his mind.

Fuck sentimentality.

She had made the call, had ultimately pulled the trigger, and she was doing it again now, sending him to catch a killer that had a damn good chance of killing him.

M was a brutal, cold bitch who would get the job done and Bond loved her for it.

In the back of his mind, he knew she cared for him, maybe even loved him as a mother loved a son. But sentimental? No, her of love was nothing so shallow, easy, and foolish. It was the love of a country sending her boys to war, the love of a queen waving her soldiers to the battlefield. Sentimentality was not a word he would use in reference to M.

Territorial, yes, most definitely. She reacted about as well to Mallory's butting in to her department as to Bond's 'decorating' advice.

Mallory left in a huff of resigned beauracratic fury and Tanner finished tracking the bullet fragments. A minute later, Bond identified Patrice as the killer and M orders him to his quartermaster, stopping him only to command, not ask, “You are ready for this.”  

He murmured his assent and left quietly. It was something that had to be true, that Bond had to _make_ true for all of their sakes.

With that ringing in his mind, he went to find Q.


End file.
